


Anywhere But Here

by KaeCooks



Category: Chicago Fire
Genre: Anywhere in the World trip, BFFP, F/M, brettsey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:35:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26579938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaeCooks/pseuds/KaeCooks
Summary: Matt and Sylvie go on their anywhere in the world trip.My contribution to the September BFFP contest. First chapter is a prequel, setting up how they got together. Second chapter uses one of the prompts.
Relationships: Sylvie Brett/Matthew Casey
Comments: 15
Kudos: 70





	1. Prequel

Sylvie was running late. Talking Scott into keeping baby Amelia after Julie died had taken much more time than she had planned for. . . and she had given herself a  _ huge _ chunk of time to meet with him. Scott decided he was moving back to Rockford, but he was keeping Amelia. That’s what mattered. 

For now, she was only worried about getting to her best friend’s wedding. She only had an hour to get to the church 45 minutes away in Aurora. Why couldn’t Joe and Chloe have chosen a venue in the city? 

___________________

She changed into her dress as fast as she could when she got there. Thankfully, her makeup only needed a couple touch ups and then she was ready.

“So sorry I’m late,” she said, rushing into the room with the other bridesmaids and groomsmen. 

“Hey,” Matt said, a cute smile flashing across his face when he saw her. “Everything okay?”

She nodded. “Much better, actually. I’ll tell you more later. Ready for this?”

“Of course.” He offered his arm to her and she hooked her arm in it. It didn’t matter that they weren’t even close to their turn to walk down the aisle yet. This was just what they’d become in recent months: more than friends, but not quite lovers. 

Matt kept wanting to ask her out, but life kept getting messy. He didn’t want to pile more on her plate. But oh, how he wanted her.

Sylvie kept feeling pulled toward him. She knew her feelings for him far exceeded even the closest of friendships, but it was messy. She felt it would be wrong somehow to make any romantic advances. But oh, how she wanted him. 

____________________

Watching Chloe walk down the aisle, Sylvie couldn’t help but think about the two times it was almost her turn. She knows she wouldn’t’ve been happy had either of those times happened, but that didn’t stop her from wanting her turn all the same. She glanced over at Matt, her heart fluttering in her chest when she noticed he was already looking at her.

As Joe and Chloe exchanged their vows, starting the rest of their lives together, Matt couldn’t get his mind off of Sylvie. She’d caught him staring at her earlier. . . then she’d smiled. Her smile lit up his entire world. He wanted that smile, her smile, in his life forever.

___________________

At the reception, Matt had just gone to get both of them a drink, and Sylvie’d promised to fill him in on the situation with Scott and Amelia when he came back. While he was gone, however, she had a horrifying realization. In all the chaos leading up to the wedding, she’d forgotten to book a hotel room. 

Sure, Aurora was only 45 minutes away from Chicago, but she was drinking and she really didn’t want to figure out a rideshare in the early hours of the next morning.

“Oh no,” he said, extending her drink toward her. “That doesn’t look like a ‘things are actually better’ face.”

“Oh no, it’s not about Amelia,” she said, quickly. “I just, uh, forgot to book a hotel room. I guess I’ll just have to take a rideshare back because I am  _ not  _ getting through this night sober.”

“That’s pretty obvious,” he teased, earning himself a gentle swat on the chest. “If you want, you can stay with me tonight.”

“Oh, Matt, I couldn’t -”

“Sure you could. I don’t need a whole hotel room to myself.”

And that’s how, hours later, Sylvie found herself following Matt into his hotel room.

He offered to take the couch so she could have the bed. She’d argued, of course, she would take the couch.  _ She  _ was the one, after all, who was intruding on  _ his _ hotel room.

Then an idea occurred to him. “You know, Sylvie,” he’d said, “It’s a king sized bed, we could just sleep on separate sides.”

“I’m far from sober, Matt. If you think you’re gonna keep me on one side of the bed when you and all your cuteness is just a big ole roll away on the other side, you are sorely mistaken.” 

He quirked an eyebrow at her. “And just what should I be afraid of not-sober Sylvie doing to me in my sleep?”

“I just really,  _ really,  _ want to cuddle the absolute  _ shit  _ outta you.”

“And what if I don’t mind?” Matt asked. It was against his better judgement, but he was tipsy too. Cuddles were innocent enough, right?

____________________

Sylvie woke up late the next morning wrapped around one very shirtless Matt Casey. Somehow, it felt like the most natural thing in the world. 

“Good morning,” he said softly, feeling her stir. 

“Good morning,” she replied. “Were you already awake?”

“Have been for a bit. I didn’t want to wake you up.” That was only partially true. Really, he’d woken up an hour earlier. The sight of Sylvie nestled into his chest made his heart skip a beat. He couldn’t bear the thought of waking her up. He could, however, let himself daydream about waking up every day like this, with her in his arms. 

“You really didn’t have to do that, or any of this,” she said, not bothering to move.

“I wanted to,” he countered. “But I do wanna talk about last night.”

They only cuddled last night. He wasn’t making any moves to let her go. In fact, he was currently stroking her shoulder with the arm he still had wrapped around her. “Last night?” she asked, propping herself up on her elbow so she could look him in the eye.

“Yeah. This week got me thinking.”

This week. So much happened this week. Sylvie simultaneously met her baby sister and lost her mother; celebrated her roommate/best friend getting accepted back into med school and coped with the reality of yet another partner leaving her on ambo; saved her baby sister from growing up in the foster system and found out she was being moved back to Rockford; and then just last night, helped two of her good friends celebrate the beginning of the rest of their lives together and dealt with the reality of losing three of her roommates in only six months.

“I want to talk about us,” he admitted, meeting her eyes. 

“Us?”

He nodded. “I keep telling myself it’s not the right time, but life is too damn short to wait for the right time, so I’m just going to say it. I like you, Sylvie Brett. I like you a lot. I don’t know when you started becoming more than a friend to me, but I never want to go back. When I woke up with you in my arms this morning, it just felt right.” He trailed off then, searching her face for some sort of response.

His confession sent a wave of heat straight to her core. She was right, he didn’t regret what happened. He wanted more. “Well, Stella and Emily have been telling me to jump your bones already for months now,” she said with a sultry smirk, leaning closer to him. 

Suddenly, his shorts were feeling rather… constrictive. “Oh have they?” 

“Mhm. I think I restrained myself from saying anything last night, but maybe now that we’re both sober and well-rested. . .” she trailed off, stopping just inches short of his face. 

He swallowed hard. “Just what are you insinuating, Sylvie?” he asked. “Because I don’t want to screw this up.”

“Well,” she purred, “I like you a lot too, and I was thinking - we’ve been spending a lot of time together off shift lately. Maybe we test a more  _ physical  _ aspect of our relationship.”

He let out a shaky breath. Sultry Sylvie was absolutely  _ killing  _ him. “You’re sure? Because if we do this, there’s absolutely no going back.” 

“I know,” she whispered, touching the tip of her nose to his, “and I don't think I'll ever want to go back. Just shut up and kiss me, would you?”

That was all he needed, tilting his head to meet her lips. 

The kiss started soft and sweet, but as it went on, Sylvie pressed harder against his lips, kissing him more intensely. 

He slid a hand up her back, snaking his fingers into her hair and she swung one leg over to straddle him.

She settled her hips lower, humming appreciatively when she felt him bulging through his shorts. 

His hips bucked involuntarily at the contact. He’d known she was assertive but  _ holy shit. _ Seeing her assertive in the bedroom was something totally different and entirely breathtaking.

He put one hand on her shoulders, gently pushing her back up onto her knees. His other hand went to toy with the hem of her shirt as he looked at her for confirmation. She smiled at him, almost imperceptibly nodding her head. 

He pulled her shirt off and she reached for his shorts, pulling those and his underwear off and tossing them to the side before disposing of her own underwear.

They stilled for a moment, awestruck as they took each other in. 

Then he pulled her back into him, his lips crashing against against hers, and there was no stopping either of them. 


	2. Flying High

Since both her roommates were moving out, Sylvie wanted to find somewhere new to live. The lease expired at the beginning of June for the apartment she’d shared with Cruz, Otis, and Foster. Matt suggested, though they’d only been together for two months at that point, that they could move in together. In the weeks following Joe and Chloe’s wedding, he’d spent basically every night at her apartment anyway.

They’d found a small house for sale about a half hour’s drive from 51. They’d closed on it in mid-July. Now, they’d been (officially) living together for 10 months and their one year dating anniversary was just around the corner.

“A year, already?” Matt teased. 

“Well, if we’re to believe what Severide and Kidd keep telling us, it really should have been much, much longer.”

He rolled his eyes affectionately.

“I was thinking we could take some furlough and finally go on that anywhere in the world adventure. I have that conference in Des Moines next week. Maybe when it’s done, we go wherever the flight board takes us.”

“Sounds good,” he said. “Think you can get your furlough approved before then, being gone and all?”

She took a step toward him and wrapped her arms around him. “I don’t know, Captain. What do I have to do to fast-track my request?” she hummed, punctuating the question by squeezing his ass. 

“That’s a good start,” he replied, “but I sense this discussion might get a bit heated.”

“Oh it better get heated,” she purred, grabbing his hand and leading him upstairs for further. . . persuasion.

____________

Two weeks later, Matt stood at the arrivals gate at the O’Hare, waiting for Sylvie’s flight to arrive from Des Moines. Soon, he and his girl were going anywhere but here. Whenever they got there, he hoped to surprise her. He fiddled with the small box in his pocket, a small smile on his face. They’d started talking about marriage more and more often. He’d been thinking about popping the question a lot over the last month. While Sylvie’d been gone, he missed her so much and it just solidified that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. He just hoped she’d say yes.

He got a glimpse of her through the sea of people exiting the plane. He pulled his hand out of his pocket to wave at her. “Sylvie!” he called.

Her head snapped toward him. She dropped her suitcase and ran toward him, nearly tackling him as she jumped into his arms and wrapped herself around him koala-style.

“You’re. Never. Allowed. To leave. Me. For that. Long. Ever.  _ Ever.  _ Again,” she said, punctuating nearly every word with a kiss. “I missed you way too much.”

“Hey now, you’re the one who left me,” he chastised, squeezing her tightly. “Come on, let’s get your bag before someone steals it or thinks it’s a bomb or something. I’ve missed this, and I promise we’ll have much more time for it when we get wherever we’re going, but let’s at least figure out where that is first, yeah?”

He had a point. She really did need to pick up her bag and she’d love to be on the plane to wherever they were going as soon as possible. She pressed one last, lingering kiss to his lips before finally dropping herself back onto the floor. 

After gathering their things, they went to the ticket counter, asking which of today’s flights still had room on them. There were afternoon flights to Chile, Turkey, Israel, Ecuador, Germany, and Scotland that still had two open seats together. They quickly discussed their options. Matt wanted to go to Scotland or Germany. Sylvie, had it been a cooler time of year, might have argued for Ecuador, but she decided Scotland sounded good for this week. 

With that, the last two seats on the flight were theirs. They’d have a short layover in New York before flying on to Edinburgh and they had two hours before take-off. 

___________________

They found a couple free seats near their gate and put their bags down. Sylvie volunteered to stay and save the seats while Matt went to get them some lunch. He got a to go bag with burgers and fries for both of them plus one extra burger. 

He quickly ate one of the burgers and wiped out the box with a napkin. Then, he pulled the small box out of his pocket and flipped it open, looking at the ring inside. He smiled to himself, flipping the small box closed and placing it in the now-empty burger box before sliding the burger box into the to-go bag with the rest of his and Sylvie’s lunches. 

. . . 

“Get me anything good?” Sylvie asked him when he found his way back to their seats. 

“Uh, yeah. I hope so,” he said, handing her the box from the top of the pile. 

She furrowed her brow. That was a weird response. She decided to shake it off, gratefully accepting the box from him. “This is light,” she commented, flipping her thumb under the tab to open the box. 

Matt was trying not to stare at her, but he just couldn’t help it. He wanted to see her reaction.

When she opened the box, it was strangely empty… except for another, smaller box. “Matt, what’s this?”

“Open it,” he said, grinning.

She complied and her breath caught in her throat. She turned to look at him, beaming. 

“Look, I wanted to give you this big speech about how you light up my world and tell you how much I love you when we got wherever we’re going, but all that went out the window when you got off your plane. I was literally almost floored by just how much I’d missed you and how much I love you and I just couldn’t wait. So what do you say, Sylvie? Will you marry me?”

“Yes, yes of course!” she exclaimed, throwing her arms around him. “I love you so much.”

“I love you, too,” he whispered, pressing a kiss into her hair. “And I promise, as soon as we get to that hotel in Edinburg, we are going to celebrate this properly.”

She pulled back, a mischievous gleam in her eye. “Who says we have to wait until Edinburg?”

His eyes went wide. He’d known her for nearly ten years and she was still finding new ways to surprise him. “PIC Brett, are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?”

She grabbed his shirt and pulled him so they were touching noses. “That’s PIC  _ Casey  _ to you,  _ Captain, _ ” she said. “And it’s not everyday you get the chance to join the mile-high club.”

“Holy shit,” he said, breathless. “I swear - if you get us kicked off the plane.”

“What are they gonna do, Matt, land in the middle of the Atlantic and make us swim the rest of the way?”

“Good god, you’re a minx.”

She popped her eyebrows at him. “I know,” she replied flirtatiously, reaching her hand into the lunch bag and grabbing another box. “I assume this one actually has food in it?” 

He nodded. “And there’s fries, too.”

“Good ‘cuz I’m gonna need some energy for the flight,” she said with a wink, digging into the sandwich. 

Matt shook his head. His Sylvie was going to be the undoing of him. . . and he couldn’t wait. 

_____________________


End file.
